The Rabbit-Horse hybrid Question
by Fancy
Summary: A Chibiusa/Elios reunion story, meant to be taken lightly. I'm hoping later chapters will be slightly more funny than these first two.
1. I. In which a Vacation is taken

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon or anything related to sailormoon, nor do I claim to.  I am not profiting from this piece of fiction (::cough:: Crap! ::cough::), etc. etc…  It's just for fun, please don't sue me.  

Author's Notes:  I don't know where this thing came from.  I rather suspect that it had something to do with my sitting in my poorly ventilated room amongst open bottles of white-out for extended periods of time.  You might wonder why I would sit amongst open bottles of white-out, and let me tell you, you don't want to know.  It's one freaky-ass cult.  

No, really, I have no idea where this story came from.  I also have no idea where the thing about white-out came from.  The things that wander around in my head.  

Anyway, as for REAL author's notes…  1.) I choose to use the name "Elios," because although I personally feel that Ms. Takeuchi probably was REFERING to "Helios," "Elios" seems to be more mainstream, and therefore it makes more sense to me to use it in a story which (hopefully) a lot of people will be reading.  2.) Chibiusa is now sixteen.  I think we all agree that sixteen suits her most, what with "sweet sixteen" and her obvious relationship with sugar and all that.  Or something.  Elios is about the age of a seventh grade boy according to Ms. Takeuchi, or so I hear.  Well I don't like that, and I'm going to pretend like I DIDN'T hear it, and say he's about eighteen or nineteen. 

Uh, anyway, I'm going to quit talking now, and get on with the actual story.  

I. In which a Vacation is taken 

In the background, jazz blared from an ancient radio.  The reception was a bit fuzzy—Lord knew that there was next to nothing that a radio could get in the core of the Earth.  This radio, however, was trying its level best, and managing to pull in strangled chords of jazz from a radio station that was apparently somewhere in eastern Yugoslavia. 

It was better than nothing. 

His fingers twitched hesitantly as they moved toward the box that he held in his other hand.  Slowly they moved forward, and pulled one long, cylindrical shape out of the box.  

So far so good. 

He dropped the box on top of the radio, and fumbled in his pocket for a moment before pulling out another vaguely cylindrical shape.  

_Flick_.

Fire danced to life over the top of the second object, and he stared at it for a moment, contemplating the beauty of the small flame's dance.  

Then, ever so slowly, he began to bring the objects together. 

"Elios!"  

His eyes grew very wide, and he hastly shoved both objects back into his pocket.  He plastered a smile onto his face before turning to face the maenad.  

"I-Ino…  Nice to see you, what are you doing?" 

"I think the question, Elios, is, what are _you_ doing?" 

"Me?  Doing?  I'm not doing anything, just taking a break from praying, you know, working the kinks out of my legs."  

"The kinks out of your legs?  Since when do you get kinks in your legs from praying?" 

"_You _try kneeling in the same position for _hours_ and not get kinks in _your_ legs."  

The maenad was slightly taken aback. 

"Why, Elios, you've never complained of this before."  

"I'd never noticed before, not back when I used to have something to pray _for_.  Not back when I got _real_ visions and revelations all of the time." 

"When was the last time that you had a revelation?" 

"Three days ago, when I realized that this is all a load of…  of…" he tried desperately to think of a word, "of HOOEY," he finally spat.    

As much as she tried, Ino could not supress the laughter that bubbled up from within her.  

Elios looked away sadly.  

"See?  No one appreciates me anymore."  

Ino stopped laughing and approached him.  Putting an arm around his shoulder, she sighed.  

"Oh, Elios, we do so appreciate you.  _Everyone_ appreciates you."  

"Who's 'everyone'?  You and Halia?  Wow, a whole two people.  No one in Crystal Tokyo even remembers us.  When was the last time we got a visit from anyone?" 

"Er…"  

"Exactly.  They don't even know we exist anymore, although they'd sure as… sure as…"  

"Sure as hell?" 

"Yeah… sure as _that_ feel it if we _didn't_ exist anymore."  

"Elios, when was the last time that you had a vacation?" 

"A _vacation_?" he sputtered indignantly.  "Why on Earth would I need a _vacation_?"  

"Well, look at you." 

"Look at me?  What about me?" 

"Elios, you're standing in the middle of an empty room in front of a radio, and… what's that?"  She stooped to pick up the box that he had thrown on top of the radio earlier.  "Cigarettes?" she asked disbelievingly.  "Elios, what on _earth_ are you doing with cigarettes?" 

"I'm too _nice_, Ino.  Doesn't it get annoying?" 

"No." 

"I just thought I needed some sort of vice.  Some sort of bad habit." 

"Oh, _great_.  And you just had to choose one that'll kill everyone around you too, eh, Elios?  Halia and I don't want your second hand smoke, so you had better pick a _different_ vice." 

"Okay—hey, wait!  It's my vice, isn't it?  I want to choose it!" 

"Choose something less disgusting, Elios.  Earth, however perfect Serenity seems to have made it, is still riddled with vices of every sort.  I'm sure you'll find something, wherever you decide to go for your vacation." 

"What vacation?" 

"The one that starts tomorrow and lasts for the rest of the week.  Better go get packing!"  

            "Ino," he whined as she turned to go.  "What am I supposed to pack?  I don't have any clothes except these robes.  And where am I supposed to go?  I don't have family to visit.  I don't know anyone but you and Halia." 

"You'll figure something out.  Go visit…"  She thought for a moment, and then a smile dawned over her face.  "Go visit Chibiusa."  

"Chibi…Chibiusa?"  

"You haven't forgotten her, have you?" 

"Of course not!  …But has _she_ forgotten _me_?" 

"Only one way to find out.  Be up bright and early tomorrow, Elios, and Halia and I will see you off."  

He sighed.  

"Fine."  


	2. II. In which a not-so-chibi Usa is confu...

II. In which a not-so-chibi Usa is confused

Truth be told, Chibiusa was not depressed.

Oh, sure, some people seemed to _think_ that she was depressed, but she was most certainly _not_.  What was there to be depressed about?  Just because her mother wanted her to reawaken the Asteroid Senshi and begin her training as a soldier with them, despite the fact that there had been no crime or evil-doers of any sort since Galaxia's time, or because she was sixteen and had never once been on a date, despite the fact that she was the crown princess of Crystal Tokyo and apparently very pretty according to her mother and father (but then, they would say that, wouldn't they), or because she was failing her math class, no matter how hard she tried to study, or because her spring allergies were acting up, there was nothing to be _depressed_ about!  

Oh, yeah, and she hadn't seen Elios since before she had come home to Crystal Tokyo.  The apparent love of her life, and she hadn't even seen him in…  Well, a thousand years, or else about six years, depending upon how one looked at it.  

Either way, it was a long time not to see the person who was apparently the love of your life.  

Okay, _now_ she was depressed.  

She stood up from the pink divan upon which she had been sprawled.  Candy wrappers littered the ground around her.  It was like a war had gone on, between the chocolate bars and all the other little candies.  And who had won?  Why, Chibiusa had won, of course, what with her most supreme weapon—teeth.  

Wow, she thought.  If she was bored enough to come up with scenarios like this in her mind, she really needed to get out. 

Ah, but where to get out _to_?  Crystal Tokyo was filled with teen hangouts, but she didn't have anyone to go with.  Hotaru, although still her friend, didn't seem to have time for her anymore, what with all of her duties.  It was the same with the other senshi.  She could understand, too, why they maybe didn't want to hang around with her anyway.  They were all in their twenties, and even though that wasn't _that_ much older than she was, she had to admit that they were all infinitely more mature.  

So she matured slowly, maybe.  It was a trait she had probably gotten from her mother.  

Well, come to think of it, she didn't _want_ to be a little kid anymore.  She was sixteen, and she should start growing up.  That had always been her dream, hadn't it?—to grow up and become a lady.  Even before she had met Elios, it had been her dream.  Now she had a good reason for wanting this, but had she acted at all to make it a reality?  No.  So perhaps _that_ was why her prince had never come back to her.  The solution was simple, then—grow up, and fast.  Hopefully, she thought, within the next two weeks. 

But how to go about doing this?  

What did grownups do that she didn't?  Well, her mother and father both drank coffee in the mornings, which was something she sure wouldn't do.  Coffee was disgusting.  …But if she was going to learn to be a grownup, maybe she had better learn to like it?  

Of course, her parents drank beer sometimes, too, and she knew that no matter what, she could _never_ learn to like _that_.  

What else did her parents do that she didn't?  She thought and she thought about the matter, but nothing else came to her.  Oh, sure, when she had been little she would have said "They like sitting around and talking" or "Momma likes to go shopping," but now she found, at sixteen, that she too enjoyed these things.  So what was it, really, that seperated her from the adults?  

She would have to go on a mission, that's what she would do.  She would go onto the streets of Crystal Tokyo, disguised as a normal citizien, and she would observe _real_ adults in their natural habitats.  

Hurriedly she pulled on some "regular" clothing, as opposed to the princess dress that she wore most days, and pulled her hair down from its buns, which would make her easily identifiable to the people of Crystal Tokyo.  

Diana, who had been placidly sleeping on her bed stirred and looked over to her mistress. 

"Lady," she asked with a yawn.  "Are we going somewhere?" 

"_I'm _going somewhere, Diana.  You can't come."  

_That_ woke the grey kitten up.  

"I can't come?" she asked, hopping down from the bed and making a beeline toward Chibiusa's feet.  "Why not?  I always come." 

 "Not this time, Diana.  You're still just a kitten.  Wait 'til you grow up some more." 

"What?  _What?_"  

"Diana," Chibiusa said, drawing herself up to her full height—although it wasn't nearly as impressive in street clothes as it would have been in her princess dress, "I am going to grow up." 

"Grow up?  But Lady, how are you planning on doing this?"  Her demeanor became serious again.  "And why can't _I_ come along?  I want to grow up, too!" 

Chibiusa sighed.    

"It's different for you, Diana," she said, sitting down on a nearby chair, and then lifting the kitten into her lap.  "You're a cat.  You don't _need_ to grow up like I do.  It's different for people." 

"How?" 

"Well…  Have you ever met a boy kitten who was _so_ wonderful and handsome that you thought you wanted to be by his side all the time?" 

"No." 

"That's how humans and cats are different, then, Diana."  

            Diana puzzled over this for a moment. 

            "But what about _my_ mommy and daddy?" she finally asked. 

"Don't worry about it," Chibiusa said, allowing the kitten to jump back down onto the floor as she stood up.  "It'll happen to you eventually, too, and that's when you'll need to grow up."  

"But Lady…  I want to go with you." 

Chibiusa stood at the door, now, looking back at her guardian cat.  

"Don't worry about it, like I said.  It'll happen when it happens, Diana, and anyway, I won't be gone long."  She pushed the door open and stepped through.  

"Oh," she said, turning once more.  "And if my parents ask, tell them…  Tell them I said I went for a walk and will be back soon." 

"Yes, Lady," Diana sighed, jumping back up on the bed.

However, as soon as the door was shut and Diana could no longer hear her lady's retreated footsteps down the hallway, she jumped down once more, and went to the door herself.  Very briefly, she morphed into her human form in order to open and close the door, and then she became a cat once more, padding silently down the hall in the direction that her mistress had gone.  Like _hell_ she was going to let Chibiusa do this alone.  And besides that, Chibiusa had never actually said where she was _really_ going to go.  She just said she was going to grow up, and that could mean any _number_ of things, all of which were frightening to Diana—especially considering the short skirt that she had put on. 

So Diana followed her mistress using her keen sense of hearing, through the hallways, and at last out of the palace entirely.  She kept a safe distance the whole time, and planned on doing so until it was too late for Chibiusa to force her return to the palace.  Of course there was no chance of her coming into contact with any _real_ danger, not in Crystal Tokyo.  _That_ wasn't why Diana was following her.  

It was just that, well…  Maybe Diana wanted to grow up, too.  

Notes: If you noticed a little symmetry between the first and second chapters…  ^_^ You're not crazy, don't worry.  BTW, I apologize for the formatting in this.  Uploading HTML documents to fanfiction.net has a tendency to mess with my formatting—especially by inserting extra spaces.  I apologize if that makes this hard to read, but… I can't really do anything about it, because uploading regular text documents messes up my formatting *worse.*

Anyway, I hope you're liking this so far!  Please keep reading, it gets more interesting from here, I promise (and hopefully slightly less serious)! 

sans_dio@yahoo.com 


	3. III. In which a Bullet-train from Elysio...

III. Bullet train from Elysion

He didn't know how they had done it, but _boy_ had they _ever_ done it.  

As planned (okay, not _really_ planned) Elios had been up bright and early, and with a suitcase that contained a few more sets of robes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, and all the other necessities.  Oh, yeah, and also the cigarettes and lighter, in case he _couldn't_ find any other bad habits in Tokyo.  

Halia and Ino had accompanied him to a train platform which he was sure hadn't previously existed, and waved as he boarded the train which had shown up slightly after six o'clock.  It was now ten o'clock, Elios was completely alone on the train, and he was starting to get crabby.  If Ino and Halia had invented the train for the specific purpose of forcing him on vacation, then couldn't they _at least_ have made it leave Elysion a little bit later?  And was Elysion _really _so far away from Crystal Tokyo that it took four hours to get there, on a _magic_ train?  Or maybe they just wanted him to suffer.  That was it.  They sent him on this vacation not for stress relief, but because they wanted him _dead_.  

In fact, the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.  Halia and Ino only wanted him out of Elysion for a week so that they could make some sort of drastic, life-altering changes.  He could see it now—automated Priest Elios, who ran on batteries and who was capable of losing himself in prayer for a good twelve hours, just like he himself had _used_ to be able to do, before he'd realized how senseless it was.  

That was the problem, he knew it now.  He'd been awakened.  Awakened from the senselessness of it all, and that was _very very bad_.  It wasn't a good idea to wake up—no, not in dream-land.  And so they were going to replace him.  

He was acutely aware of the fact that he was _alone_ now, unless Chibi-usa indeed remembered him, which he very much doubted—she hadn't even tried to contact him, after all.  How long had it been since he had last seen her, anyway?  How old was she, now?  What if she had already fallen in love with or married someone else?  

  "Well," he said conversationally, and out loud, looking around the car as if there might actually be other people to hear him.  "If that's the case, I guess I'll just have to go insane and try to take over the world."  He smiled around at the vacant seats again, and then _realized_ what he was saying.  

And panicked.  

And nearly burst into tears at the thought that maybe, just maybe, the train was bugged, and someone had actually heard him say that and right now, at that very second, reinforcements were being sent to the train station where he would soon be arriving, and the doors would slide open with a hiss, steam rushing into the car, and out he would peer, cautiously, and suddenly the sound of a machine gun would rip through the air, and he… he…

Well, being a priest he was already more or less _holy_.  It was being _holey_ that worried him.  A lot.  

"Uh…  I didn't really mean that, you know!" he called into the car, just in case, and then blinked.  

"I'm talking to myself, aren't I?  …I must be going mad.  I must _be_ mad, since I even agreed to go on this stupid vacation at all.  Well it will all be all right, eventually.  Ha, yes, I'll show them.  Them and their stupid automated Priest Elios.  And Chibi-usa, too, for marrying someone else!"  He stood up abruptly and clenched his hands into fists.  "Yes, I'll show _all_ of them!  I'll show the whole da-… da-…  DARN world that you can't just walk over Elios and expect him to like and accept it!—oh, no!"  He paused for a moment to indulge in a bit of maniacal laughter—a thing which he didn't often allow himself.  Of course, the occasion for it had never actually manifested itself in the past, so his maniacal laughter came out sounding a little bit more like a combination between a wracking cough and a duck on stimulants than anything else.  

He stopped suddenly, however, to look warily around the car once more.  He checked quickly under the seat cushion for microphones, and then sat down again, faced with another problem: 

Just _how_ was he going to show all of them? 

"Well," he said aloud again.  "I could become rich and famous.  Or just famous.  Yes, that's it, I'll become a famous rock star, and then they'll all be sad that they didn't see the raw talent in me." 

…Of course, he realized disappointedly, he had no raw talent for singing or for music in general.  _That_ idea wouldn't work.  

"Then maybe I'll just fall in love with someone else—someone really pretty and kind, who would _never_ abandon me.  And I'll marry her, and we'll have lots of children.  …No, that wouldn't spite Ino and Halia enough.  Fine, then, I'll organize a crime ring, and— …no.  Start a wildly successful business?  Hmm…  Haven't got the entrepreneurial skills."  He sighed, and thought _hard_ for a moment.  

…And once again came up devoid of _any_ skills or talents that he might have.  He had to blink back tears as the sad truth hit him.  

"I really _am_ worthless.  No wonder they all want to be rid of me."  

He mulled this over for the remainder of the trip, which turned out to be about twenty more minutes.  

The train pulled into a station which appeared to be in the heart of the city.  It was extraordinarily clean, and so were all the people moving through it.  

Clean, well dressed, well groomed, and happy looking. 

Oh, and not _one_ of them had a golden horn sticking out of their forehead.  

Understandably, Elios attracted some attention, getting off of the train.  Yes, he decided, it must have been the horn.  Or else it was the long white robes.  …Or maybe it was his plaid suitcase?—either way, he was getting odd looks.  

So the first thing Elios decided to do was go to the nearest clothing store he could find.  

…Which happened to be a lovely little place called Hot Topic.  

It was with much trepidation that Elios entered the store at all.  The pulsating red lights around inside of the entrance frightened him.  …But on the plus side, the girl at the counter had pink hair, and that reminded him of Chibi-usa (even though he was trying very hard to forget her.)  So Elios swallowed his fear, picked up his little plaid suitcase, and entered the store.  

The girl at the counter turned toward him when he entered, and, taking a good long look from the tip of his horn to the soles of his pristine white boots, and gave a low whistle.  

"You must be from Europe," she said.  

He nodded hesitantly.  

"I, er, I need a little help—" 

"Fitting in with the locals?"  

He nodded again.  

Her eyes glinted wickedly, but Elios didn't notice.  Elios was too nice himself, and therefore tended not to notice all but the most obvious signs of malice—you know, like when someone destroys your home land, wraps your naked body up in spider web-like material, suspends you in midair, and then decides to turn you into a horse.  That sort of thing.  

"Here, sir, let me show you some of the things we _just_ got in," she said, leading him to a nearby clothing rack.  

And Elios?  Elios never suspected a thing. 

--------- 

Notes: You don't really get to know Elios all that well in either the manga or the anime.  Therefore I don't HAVE to say that this is wildly OOC.  Ha.  

Also, I'm not really sure if Hot Topic stores exist outside the U.S.A.  Therefore, for any international readers I might have, I will explain that they are a clothing chain which carries an interesting variety of punk and goth clothing.  The stores tend to be really dark inside.  Personally, I think they have some pretty neat stuff, but the idea of Elios even working up the will to go in cracks me up.  I would also like to note that the above example of a clerk is waaaay off.  All the clerks in Hot Topic that I've ever run into have been almost disturbingly friendly, even though they tend to look like the kind of people that I would run away from, should I happen to meet them in a dark alleyway.  …No offense meant.  -_-  

Disclaimer:  Not only do I NOT own Sailor moon, I ALSO do not own Hot Topic, nor do I have any rights to either of these.  I'm not profiting off of this little thing here.  I hate writing disclaimers.  I don't know what else to say.  Did I mention that I hate writing disclaimers?  


End file.
